Today Show Hurt Its Journalistic Brand By Letting Palin Co-Host

One of the biggest media stories of the past week was NBC’s decision to have Sarah Palin co-host The Today Show alongside Matt Lauer to try and compete with Katie Couric‘s star power on GMA or something. So naturally, it came up today as one of the big topics on CNN’s Reliable Sources. But TV critic David Zurawik absolutely tore into the whole thing, saying that NBC had a brand of journalism to protect, but abandoned it the second it decided to let Palin co-host the network institution.

“It showed how frightened they [NBC] are by the move that GMA is making on them, number one. I also think the fact that GMA and ABC said, ‘Hey, we can throw Couric out here occasionally,’ scared them and rattled them. But more importantly, bringing Sarah Palin on that show, even if it got you a little ratings bump for the day she was on and it deflected some attention from Katie Couric, was another case of Today cheapening the journalistic brand of NBC News, which runs that show.”